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A positive story about the healthcare industry

A positive story about the healthcare industry

I have expressed many negative views about the medical industry, particularly pain medicine doctors and medical insurance, but this one is very different. But first, some back story, my wife, Erin, has been suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia for over a decade. Because of this, she has required pain management doctors to prescribe narcotics to control her chronic pain.

Erin’s experience has not been good with Wichita pain management, including Advanced Pain Management, and ICT Internal Medicine & Pain Management, who both dropped Erin as a patient due to her use of Delta 8 CBD to help control her pain as both of these offices ignored her pleas about the prescribed narcotics not covering her pain, asking to try something different. Every month, Erin would visit the office, give a sample, and they’d give her a script for the drugs that were not working for her.

Erin had to make frequent visits to the ER for a shot of Dilaudid to help with her pain when it got out of control, i.e., breakthrough pain, where her regular Hydrocodone pills simply don’t work. Erin did find a pain management doctor,  Xavier F Ng, who did listen and tried many different treatments; but, when Erin moved onto Medicaid insurance, she lost Dr. Ng, being without pain management for almost 3 months while we searched in earnest for a new pain management doctor, who accepted Medicaid.

Finally, we found a great pain management doctor, Tiffany Lau, after jumping through loads of hoops to get a referral, and we only found Hutchinson Clinic and Dr. Lau, thanks to an ER doctor at Wesley Woodlawn, who suggested Hutchinson Clinic. Erin managed to get through to January 30, 2024, when her appointment with Dr. Lau was, by a combination of other people giving her some of their Hydrocodone and Tramadol and the exceptional providers at Wesley Woodlawn ER in Wichita.

Erin wanted me to go to her appointment with Dr. Lau, as her previous experiences with pain management doctors, particularly Dr. Baoluan Nguyen, who, on her first visit with him, was incredibly dismissive and lorded it over Erin that he had the power over whether she was in pain or not. Dr. Lau at Hutchinson Clinic was the polar opposite: empathetic and understanding, listening to Erin and discussing a treatment plan. It was well worth the 100+ mile, 1 hour, 40 minute round trip to Hutch and back.

I cannot recommend Dr. Tiffany Lau and Hutchinson Clinic enough; Dr. Lau is everything you’d want from a pain medicine doctor, and they accept Medicaid, and Medicare, which is a lifeline for so many people, often less financially able to pay for private insurance, or on disability, suffering from chronic pain.

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